Cigar manufacture



March 22, 1966 A. M. GOTTSCHO ETAL 3,241,558

CIGAR MANUFACTURE Filed April 17, 1964 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. 1

FIG.2

INVENTORS ALFRED M. GOTTSCHO EARL H. HESS AGENT March 22, 1966 A. M. GOTTSCHO ETAL 3,241,558

CIGAR MANUFACTURE Filed April 1'7, 1964 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR.

ALFRED M. GOTTSCHO EARL H. HESS AGENT March 1965 A. M. GOTTSCHO ETAL 3,241,558

CIGAR MANUFACTURE Filed April 17, 1964 s Sheets-Sheet s INVENTOR.

ALFRED M. GOTTSCHO EARL H. HESS flu m AGENT United States Patent 3,241,558 CIGAR MANUFACTURE Alfred M. Gottscho, Millersville, and Earl H. Hess, Lancaster, Pa., assignors to General Cigar Co., Inc., New

York, N .Y., a corporation of New York Filed Apr. 17, 1964, Ser. No. 360,529 6 Claims. (Cl. 131-45) This invention relates to the method of manufacturing cigars, cigarillos and the like from a continuous roll of a coherent tobacco wrapper sheet which is reinforced with a relatively narrow band of a protective coating on its surface along the edge of the sheet which corresponds to the portion of the sheet that ultimately covers the head end of the smoking product.

To improve the durability of the head end of a cigar Wrapper sheet to manipulation in the smokers mouth, the prior art has dealt with the modification of the formulation of the entire cigar wrapper sheet. While these modifications have increased the resistance of the head end of a cigar to disintegration by the smokers chewing action and saliva, the smoking quality of the tobacco sheet has been impaired. The present invention avoids the unpleasant taste and aroma associated with such modified sheets by selecting a tobacco sheet of good smoking quality and applying a reinforcing and protective coating to a localized area of the sheet that covers the unsmoked head end of the cigar.

An alternate method of applying a protective coating on the head end of a finished cigar has been accomplished by spraying or dipping the head end after the cigar bunch has been encased with the wrapper. However, this involves an additional manufacturing step which adds to the cost of production of cigars. Furthermore, the spraying or clipping of a finished cigar complicates the required steps of drying or curing the applied coating. The elevated temperature required to effect the setting of the coating tends to dry out the whole head end of the cigar. The problem of rehumidification then is more difficult once the coating is set, since, by special selection, the coating must have a high resistance to moisture penetration.

An additional disadvantage to coating finished cigars stems from the organic solvents employed in most coating solutions. Such solvents diffuse readily into the cigar head. Efforts to insure complete removal of these solvents which are obnoxious to both the taste and the aroma of the cigar involve the use of a relatively high temperature that also drives off some of the desirable volatile components naturally present in the tobacco. When the reinforcing coating is applied to the tobacco sheet prior to the time when it is rolled as a Wrapper on a cigar bunch, the drying or curing of the coating and the rehumidification of the sheet can be accomplished with greater facility.

When a finished cigar is dipped or sprayed, the head end of the cigar receives only a single thickness of coating. In the present method of helically wrapping a cigar with a tobacco sheet which has been precoated in the area that covers the head end, additional strength is obtained because the coated wrapper overlaps itself at the head end of the cigar.

In accordance with this invention, a relatively narrow band of reinforcing coating is applied to the surface of a coherent tobacco wrapper sheet along the edge corresponding to the portion of the sheet that ultimately covers the head end of the cigar or like smoking product, the thus coated wrapper sheet is cut obliquely relative to the band of coating to provide a wrapper segment in the form of a parallelogram, and this wrapper segment is helically rolled onto a cigar bunch to yield a cigar with only its head end reinforced by the protective coating on a portion of the wrapper sheet. More specifically, the wrapper segments are cut from a continuous roll of tobacco sheet having a band of coating on its surface along one 3,241,558 Patented Mar. 22, 1966 edge of the sheet, obliquely to the length of the sheet so that an acute angle of the order of 45 is formed between the cutting line and the coated edge of the sheet; the resulting wrapper sheet segment is essentially an elongated parallelogram with a band or strip of coating on its surface along one of the short sides. The dimensions of the Wrapper segment are determined by the size of the wrapper die which must be fully covered to manufacture a cigar of a particular shape and size.

For a fuller understanding of the objects and advantages of this invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings of which:

FIG. 1 is an overhead view of a portion of a casting conveyor belt with a continuous sheet of tobacco on which narrow bands of reinforcing coating are being applied;

FIG. 2 is a top view showing the simple rewinding of a roll of coated tobacco sheet in order to transfer the position of the protective coating from one edge of a roll to the opposite edge;

FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate two tobacco sheet rolls with the coating band-s along the opposite edges of the rolls; each figure further shows the method of obliquely cutting the tobacco sheet to form parallelogram segments having an acute angle between the cut edge and the coated edge;

FIGS. 3A and 3B are enlarged top views of the parallelogram segments of FIGS. 2A and 2B, respectively, showing the cigar wrapper die-cut from each segment so that the coated portion of the sheet provides the head end or flag of the die-cut cigar wrapper; and

FIGS. 4A and 4B show the finished cigars made with the die-cut cigar wrappers of FIGS. 3A and 3B, respectively.

Referring to FIG. 1, the production of a continuous cigar wrapper sheet 2 on an endless stainless steel belt 1 may be carried out in accordance with the procedure disclosed in Example 6 of US. Patent 3,076,729 of Garbo, issued February 5, 1963. Bands 3, 4 of reinforcing coating may be applied simply by rollers 5 riding on the surface of tobacco sheet 2. Alternatively, confined spray nozzles may be used in place of rollers 5. Coating bands 3 are laid down in single width, while bands 4 are of double width sufficient to make two rolls of wrapper sheet.

FIG. 1 shows the application of the coating bands to the sheet on the casting belt but an otf-the belt application to a roll of previously manufactured tobacco sheet by any known means will likewise serve the purposes of this invention. On-the-belt application of the coating bands 3, 4 is preferably carried out immediately after the tobacco sheet leaves the drying section of the casting line so that the heat of the sheet and belt are utilized to evaporate the solvent in the coating.

After the coating bands 3, 4 have dried, tobacco sheet 2 is reordered or rehumidified in the known manner and stripped from steel belt 1. Rotary knife blades 6' slit tobacco sheet 2 into the widths required by the cigarmaking machines which will utilize the resulting coated sheets as cigar wrapper.

Cigar machines have been constructed to cut cigar wrappers from one or the other of the two halves of tobacco leaves which are separated by the midrib. To insure a uniform appearance of the veins in the tobacco leaf on the finished cigar, these machines are designed to roll cigar wrappers from either right-hand faces 01' left-hand faces of such leaves when the leaves are viewed in the vertical position with their butts down. Inasmuch as tobacco wrapper sheet is rolled on these same machines, care must be exercised to provide the proper roll of sheet coated in accordance with this invention. A so-called left-hand cigar machine, originally intended to utilize only the left-hand faces of tobacco leaves as cigar wrappers, produces cigars with the wrapper spiralled as shown in the cigar of FIG. 4A. FIG. 4B shows a cigar made on a right-hand cigar machine. The coated tobacco sheet of FIG. 2A would be utilized on a left-hand cigar machine to make the cigar of FIG. 4A, while the sheet of FIG. 2B used on a right-hand machine would produce the cigar of FIG. 4B.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, the roll of coated sheet on spool 7 in FIG. 2A can be rewound on spool 8 to transfer the position of the coating to that of the roll shown in FIG. 2B. The rewinding can, of course, be reversed.

A roll of continuous wrapper sheet with the protective coating along one edge can be automatically fed to a cigar-making machine by a device of the type shown in FIGURE 3 of copending application Serial No. 169,913 of Dreher, filed January 30, 1962. This device provides means for obliquely cutting the segment S from the coated sheet in the form of a parallelogram which is then placed on a wrapper die D by a mechanical transfer arm as described in the Dreher application. The short side of the parallelogram segment with the protective coating is laid over the flag end of the wrapper die because the flag end of the wrapper covers the head end of the finished cigar. The conventional cigar machine operates to roll the die-cut wrapper helically over a pre-formed cigar bunch. With the coated wrapper sheet of this invention, the finished cigar has its head end completely enveloped with protective coating 3.

As a specific example of the invention, the tobacco sheet made in accordance with Example 6 of US. Patent 3,076,729 has applied to its exposed surface while on the casting belt narrow bands of ethylcellulose dissolved in a solvent mixture of anhydrous isopropanol and toluene. The solution was made by agitating a mixture of 96.4 pounds of isopropanol and 214 pounds of toluene and adding 14.2 pounds of ethylcellulose (20-30 second viscosity grade) and 2.2 pounds of flatting powder (Syloid 72). This coating solution had a viscosity of 155 centipoises as measured in a Brookfield viscosimeter at a temperature of 54 F.

This solution was fed from a tank under a pressure of 20 pounds per square inch gauge and metered through a flowmeter to applicator rollers that were positioned on the casting belt at the exit end of the drying section. By adjusting the flow of the solution to each applicator roller, a band of coating 1%. inches wide was deposited on the surface of the tobacco sheet at a rate corresponding to approximately 130 milligrams of ethylcellulose per square foot of coated sheet.

Immediately after the bands of ethylcellulose solution were laid on the tobacco sheet and dried with the residual heat in the sheet and conveyor belt, the entire sheet was uniformly sprayed with a thin coating of ethylcellulose plasticized with polypropylene glycol at such a rate that 80 to 100 milligrams of ethylcellulose were deposited per square foot of sheet. Therefore, the areas of the coated bands on the tobacco sheet received a total of 210 to 230 milligrams of ethylcellulose per square foot.

After all of the coating dried, the tobacco sheet was reordered to a moisture content of about 25% by weight and trimmed to size with rotary knives so that the reinforcing coating was limited to about 1 inches of the width of each sheet cut to an overall width of /2 inches. The band of the sheet with the protective coating had a tensile strength of 395 grams per square millimeter.

The thus coated tobacco sheets were used on conventional cigar-making machines equipped with devices of the type shown in Figure 3 of the aforesaid Dreher application. The oblique cutting of each sheet made an angle of 45 between the cutting line and the coated edge of the sheet. Each cut segment in the form of a parallelogram was just large enough to cover the wrapper die for a cigarillo. The band of protective coating on the wrapper segment covered the flag end of the wrapper die. The machine produced cigarillos having a length of 4% inches and a %-inch wide band of the protective coating encircling the head of each cigarillo.

In objective smoking tests, these cigarillos were found to have satisfactory chewing and saliva resistance during the usual manipulation in the smokers mouth. The protective coating on the head of each cigarillo did not in any way detract from the good smoking quality of the Wrapper sheet. Because the protective coating had been applied in the controlled amount already described and contained fiatting powder, it was not discernible to smokers of the finished cigarillos.

It will be understood that while the protective coating of the foregoing example was intentionally made not readily detectable by the average smoker, in other cigars the protective coating might be formulated to have a color contrasting with that of the rest of the cigar. For example, titanium dioxide or other suitable pigment might be incorporated in the protective coating so that the finished cigars will have elegantly colored heads.

The many possible variations in the formulation of suitable protective coatings for the purposes of this invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art of protective coatings. Coatings compounded from both natural and synthetic resins may be used. Thus, protective coatings based on soluble-type nylon, cellulose acetate and methacrylate polymers have also given satisfactory results. The selected coating should be flexible and have some elasticity so that the coated tobacco sheet can be properly wrapped around the cigar bunch without difficulty. Thus, in the case of ethylcellulose, experience has shown that the protective band on the tobacco sheet should preferably be in the range of 200 to 250 milligrams of ethylcellulose per square foot in order that the coated sheet will have good workability on the cigarmaking machine and the finished cigars will have satisfactory chew resistance.

The width of the protective coating band applied to a tobacco sheet may be adjusted at will and will depend on the shape and size of the cigars to be made from the coated sheet. As a practical matter, there is no point in making the protective band so wide that on the finished cigars more than 1 /2 inches of the head end of each cigar will be enveloped by the protective coating.

The claims should not be interpreted in any restrictive 11. In the production of cigars with a tobacco wrapper sheet on a cigar-making machine provided with a wrapper die and a rolling device for applying the wrapper helically around the cigar bunch, the improvement in combination therewith of applying a narrow band of protective coating on the surface and along a longitudinal edge of said wrapper sheet, obliquely cutting the thus coated wrapper sheet to yield a parallelogram segment of said coated wrapper sheet of sufficient size to cover the wrapper die on said cigar-making machine, and placing said parallelogram segment on said wrapper die with the coated portion of said parallelogram segment covering only the flag end of said wrapper die.

2. The method of claim It wherein the applied protective coating is clear and not apparent.

3. The method of claim it wherein the applied coating has a color contrasting with that of the tobacco wrapper sheet.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the applied coating comprises ethylcellulose.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the applied coating comprises nylon.

6. The method of claim 11 wherein the oblique cutting of the coated wrapper sheet yields a parallelogram segment having an acute angle of the order of 45 between the cutting line and the coated edge of said wrapper sheet.

(References on following page) UNITED References Cited by the Examiner STATES PATENTS Huse 131-29 Allen 131-24 Meulen 131-140 Meyer 131-12 Krummling 117-4 Eberlein et a1. 131-12 Harsh 131-76 Sulzberger 131-12 McArdle et a1 131-12 X Burns 131-76 X Copeman 131-12 Wheeler 131-34 X Godfrey 131-29 Dreher.

SAMUEL KOREN, Primary Examiner. 

1. IN THE PRODUCTION OF CIGARS WITH A TOBACCO WRAPPER SHEET ON A CIGAR-MAKING MACHINE PROVIDED WITH A WRAPPER DIE AND A ROLLING DEVICE FOR APPLYING THE WRAPPER HELICALLY AROUND THE CIGAR BUNCH, THE IMPROVEMENT IN COMBINATION THEREWITH OF APPLYING A NARROW BAND OF PROTECTIVE COATING ON THE SURFACE AND ALONG A LONGITUDINAL EDGE OF SAID WRAPPER SHEET, OBLIQUELY CUTTING THE THUS COATED WRAPPER SHEET TO YIELD A PARALLELOGRAM SEGMENT OF SAID COATED WRAPPER SHEET OF SUFFICIENT SIZE TO COVER THE WRAPPER DIE ON SAID CIGAR-MAKING MACHINE, AND PLACING SAID PARALLELOGRAM SEGMENT ON SAID WRAPPER DIE WITH THE COATED PORTION OF SAID PARALLELOGRAM SEGMENT COVERING ONLY THE FLAG END OF SAID WRAPPER DIE. 